The reason you’re not going to High Voltage Festival is that you’re an idiot

With all out “Download Festival this, Sonisphere Festival that, Oh look Reading & Leeds” blathering recently, we’ve really missed out on emphasising one fact about the upcoming UK festival season: that High Voltage Festival, frankly, looks like it’s going to piss all over everyone else. The fact that it was confirmed today that Opeth will be playing their only UK festival show of 2010 there merely cements that fact.

And we’re not just giving the festival the big shout-out because we can get the tube home from Victoria Park afterwards. Our compadrés over at Metal Hammer have curated a quite frankly evil bastard of a stage: Venom, Black Label Society, Down, Clutch, Audrey Horne, High On Fire, Orange Goblin and New Device. Then of course you’ve got ZZ Top and Emerson Lake & Palmer headlining (okay, we’ll admit we’re not that hot for ELP…), as well as Heaven & Hell, The Answer, Foreigner, Gary Moore, UFO, and The Quireboys.

And Argent! The band that originally recorded ‘God Gave Rock’n’Roll To you’ before KISS covered it for Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. That, my friends, is a badass line-up.

What’s that? You’ve blown all your money on tickets for other festivals? Well, it’s a good job we’re reminding you that our competition to win a pair of tickets to the festival is still open, isn’t it?

Win a pair of tickets to High Voltage Festival

What are ZZ Top most famous for?

This competition is dead. Go click Competitions and find another one and win some other shit.

Of course, you can always dig out your wallet and actually buy yourself a ticket instead of gambling on the off-chance you might win a competition. Tickets are on-sale now from the official High Voltage Festival website, and start at £75 for a Day ticket – but really, you’re better off going for both days.